So, I am an official NaNoWriMo participant. Sadly, I am not a NaNoWriMo winner. I wrote 48,285 words in the last month. I just counted them up. I needed to write 50,000 in order to get the NaNo bragging rights, but I’m pretty happy with what I did. I wrote until nearly the last minute, a final desperate gasp on my Friday lunch break, but then I was done. Besides, Pooh and Tigger and I had to make gingerbread houses last night. That’s important enough for me to not finish 2000 measly words. They would have been crap anyway, just me throwing down sentences which I would have trashed today when I reread them.

To distract you from my lack of 2000 words, I have attached pictures of our gingerbread houses. Didn’t we do well?

In a NaNoWriMo wrap up, I’d like to share some valuable things I learned during this experience:

1. I have 38 containers of spices in my cabinet, three of which are ground mustard. To my knowledge I have never used ground mustard in any recipe so why I need three tins of it is beyond me.

2. My shoe racks are not large enough to fit all my shoes. I spent an afternoon cleaning them out and gave eight pair away.

3. Old toothbrushes make great grout scrubbers.

4. Murphy does not like it when you tape the bottoms of his feet.

5. I don’t like Nicholas Sparks’s books. Barf.

6. I had a bag of parsley in the fridge that did not fare well and THAT was what my fridge smell bad.

Procrastination at its finest. That’s what true writing is, people.

Seriously, I got a lot of work done on one book. It needs A LOT of work to get it into shape but my basic story is down and my themes are evident. I’m leaving it alone for a while to do other projects this month but in January I will revisit it. Here’s hoping I don’t cry when I reread it – it can’t be that bad, right?

Moving onwards now . . . . Don’t forget that I will be posting something here every day in December. I received two guest posts that I simply ran out of time to post. (I was typing like mad, y’all.) I will use those in December – thank you Freddie and Prom Date Will. Boss promised another – let’s see if he is a man of his word.

Thank you to everyone else who wrote for me last month. I luffed it. I luff you for doing that.

So, I have a lot to tell you in the next 30 days. You guys missed a lot. Good thing I have a mind like a steel trap and forget nothing.

Well, guys, this will be my final post before leaving for a month. I’m going to miss you. I wonder how many times I’ll want to make fun of myself over the next 30 days when I won’t be able to share here. I’ll try to save them up for my 30 days of blogging in December.

I will check in periodically to post my guest slots and to give you updates on my word count. 50,000 is the goal. To know me is to know my love of words so you know I can reach the count. Let’s just hope they make sense. You know, I signed up for NaNoWriMo two years ago. I wrote 250 words on November 1, 2010 and then got a phone call from a friend. We started talking about boys and that was all she wrote, literally. NaNoWriMo was dead to me.

Oh, I chose a football team! I know you’ve all been waiting to hear that. It took me a while. I had lots of input from you and most especially from Coach, who taught me how to look at stats and how to look up helmets and logos. What really helped me, though, was Martie. She said, “You can’t be a fair weather fan. You pick a team and you support them through the good and the bad. No waffling and changing to the team that plays better.” And then Coach chimed in with the same advice. He’s a long time Alabama fan and a longtime Cowboys fan, rabid even through the lean years. So, okay. I have no choice but to be a Titans fan. Nashville is mine. The Titans are mine. They play like doody most of the time, and even though the lean years will last for ages, I will support them. I was never more proud in all my life than when they beat the Lions and then the Steelers (!). I realized I really want them to do well. So call me a Titan. The end.

Except it isn’t. I also have a secondary team. I just can’t seem to get over the Ram’s horns. Seriously. Those helmets with the horns just slay me, and so those of you who lecture me about perpetuating the stereotype, get over it. I picked a team because of a helmet that turns me on. At least I didn’t pick a team because of a hot guy. For the record, I also read the team’s history and would like to share with you that they were the first NFL team to add a logo to their helmet (swoon) and also the first NFL team to add black teammates after the WWII era. Suck on that, haters! (And also, while I’m being Fickle Fanny over here, I really want to see the Texans win the Super Bowl. The longhorns! Those uniforms! It’s Texas, y’all. I am moved.) (And yes, I realize that the Texans were not even on my nominated list but I hadn’t seen the logo yet. I had no idea . . .)

And just because I can, because you expect it, and because this is me we are talking about:

Hottie Titan

Hottie Ram

Hottie Texan

I haven’t talked about my dinners with my seniors in a while either. I had dinner with them last week and as per usual, had a blast. I love those people so much. I want to tell you about a couple more of them. JoAnne, who has only been two or three times, just embarrasses me to death every time she attends. She’s adorable. She wears a fall (a chunk of hair you attach to your head to make you look like you have more hair) or a funky hat every time and so you look at her and think, “Well, isn’t she cute. Full of spunk, that one.” And then she opens her mouth and proves it and you could just slam your forehead into the butter dish, you are so horrified.

“NO! I don’t want a SALAD! I have GALL BLADDER issues! Take it AWAY!“

“This is the WORST coffee I have ever tasted! I can make better at home! BRING ME more sugar!”

“Those CHILDREN need to be SPANKED! My meal is RUINED!”

I can honestly say that I agree with her in nearly every instance but I prefer to keep my opinions if not to myself, at least confined to the guests at my table. Not JoAnne. Everyone knows where she stands.

The other person I want to tell you about is Bob. Bob has only missed maybe one or two dinners the whole time I’ve been doing this. He’s in his 60s, I guess. He’s never been married. He purchased his house in one lump sum, no payments, ever. He’s terrified of being late and being left behind. He ends every sentence with an “uh?”

“Hey, Jimmie-uh? Do I have enough-uh money-uh for dessert? Uh?” He brings $28 to every dinner and we figure out what he can have for that price and still leave a fair tip. He’s the gentlest soul and I love him. He was the first of the group to realize that I knew how to work a standard cell phone and so asked me to program some numbers in for him. Now we all spend the first ten minutes of every dinner shuffling phones back and forth to me so that I can clear out voice mails and add contacts. Once a month everyone gets squared away.

I probably have so many other things to share but I’m out of space and time. A whole month. What will you do without me?

For those of you who are helping me this month, THANK YOU! Boss, Prom Date Will, Jonquil, Esteban, Woney, and Studio Bukowski – thank you! Boss and Esteban have already sent goodies over and I just hee hawed. I cannot wait to read and post your stuff. Anyone else in? I still have a full grown cat up for grabs.